Key stage 3:Our Year 8 pupils learn more about ‘their place’ by exploring Northern Ireland, map skills, settlement and everyone’s favourite topic of conversation, the weather. They are also involved in our successful Connected Unit where they use GIS to help present their proposals for the redevelopment of the sadly neglected Queen’s Parade.

Year 9 take a slightly wider view discovering how landscapes are changed by the action of rivers and waves. They consider important questions about population and policies and learn how animals have adapted to survive in extreme environments and how humans threaten these delicate ecosystems.

Pupils in Year 10 deal with global issues, focusing on natural hazards, economic activity and development in a bid to help them better understand the inequalities in our world and their role in redressing this imbalance.

Key stage 4: GCSE:

The skills and knowledge gained in Key Stage 3 are built upon at GCSE level. We follow the CCEA Geography specification and are a popular option choice among pupils. This course has two distinct units each divided into three themes.

•Theme A: People and Where They Live•Theme B: Contrasts in World Development•Theme C: Managing our Resources

This course is examined in two examinations (each worth 37.5%) and a Controlled Assessment (25%).

Key stage 5: AS/A2 LevelA Level Geography continues to be an attractive choice to our Sixth Form. We follow the CCEA AS/A2 Specification in Geography, with pupils being taught by specialists in both Human and Physical Geography.

They are also fully prepared for the Global Issues and Decision Making elements of the examinations. Like AS our A2 material is assessed in two examination papers.

Subject/Departmental pupil achievements: Congratulations to past pupils Ashleigh and Kate for achieving an A* grade in their A2 results. Like many of our pupils, both have gone on to study Geography at University.

Clubs and Extra-Curricular Activities:Geographers are keen participants on the Eco-Schools Committee (see Mr Best in C202 for further details).The mapwork skills acquired and developed by all year groups make Geographer natural ‘guided missiles’ in the Duke of Edinburgh expeditions.

Educational visits and trips: We believe that fieldwork is a vital element of our living subject, to that end our pupils visit a host of places to further enhance their learning experience. We run trips to Bangor Seafront, Colin Glen, Tayto, W5, Newcastle and the Titanic Quarter.

Subject/Departmental multimedia resources:We have an extensive range of audio visual resources accessible on the school media drive.